BACKGROUND: Inflammation plays a role in mood and behavior that may be relevant to identifying risk factors and treatment for depression and other stress-related illnesses. The purpose of this study was to examine whether fluctuations in inflammation following a mild immune stimulus were associated with changes in daily reported features of depression for up to a week in a healthy sample of young adults. METHODS: Forty one undergraduate students completed daily diaries of mood, feelings of social disconnection, sleep, and physical symptoms for one week before and after receiving the seasonal influenza vaccine...

Estrogens are biologically active steroid hormones mainly released from the ovary by ovarian secretion of estrogen into the circulating blood to regulate or function at the distal target. Estrogens play an important role in the central nervous system, cardiovascular system and immune system, especially for post-menopausal women. Panax ginseng Mayer has been reported to relieve women's menopausal symptoms and affect estrogen activities. However, the mechanism of its estrogen regulation has not yet been clearly investigated...

Background: Peptic ulcer is a prevalent problem and symptoms include epigastria pain and heartburn. This study aimed at investigating the prevalence and causes of peptic ulcers in Iran using systematic review and meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: Eleven Iranian papers published from 2002 to 2016 are selected using valid keywords in the SID, Goggle scholar, PubMed and Elsevier databases. Results of studies pooled using random effects model in meta-analysis. The heterogeneity of the sample was checked using Q test and I 2 index...

OBJECTIVE: Pain in the pelvic girdle area is commonly reported during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and its impact on quality of life is considerable. The Pelvic Girdle Questionnaire (PGQ), developed in 2011 in Norway, is the only condition-specific tool assessing pelvic girdle pain-related symptoms and disability. The questionnaire was recently translated and adapted for the French-Canadian population. The objective of this study was to assess the measurement properties of the previously translated French-Canadian PGQ...

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: This study sought to characterise the microbial ecology of the lower urinary tract in patients with symptoms of overactive bladder (OAB) using culture of the urinary urothelial cell sediment. The pathological significance of the microbiome was assessed through its relationship with known urothelial inflammatory markers and patient reported symptoms. METHODS: Adult female patients with OAB symptoms and asymptomatic controls were assessed at 12 study visits scheduled every 4 weeks...

AIMS: Amyloidosis is caused by deposition of abnormal protein fibrils, leading to damage of organ function. Hereditary amyloidosis represents a monogenic disease caused by germline mutations in 11 amyloidogenic precursor protein genes. One of the important but non-specific symptoms of amyloidosis is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Diagnostics of hereditary amyloidosis is complicated and the real cause can remain overlooked. We aimed to design hereditary amyloidosis gene panel and to introduce new next-generation sequencing (NGS) approach to investigate hereditary amyloidosis in a cohort of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy of unknown significance...

BACKGROUND: Several prediction models assessing future risk of exacerbations in adult patients with asthma have been published. Applicability of these models is uncertain because their predictive performance has often not been assessed beyond the population in which they were derived. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify and critically appraise prediction models for asthma exacerbations and validate them in two clinically distinct populations. METHODS: PubMed and EMBASE were searched to April 2017 for reports describing adult asthma populations in which multivariable models were constructed to predict exacerbations during any time frame...

INTRODUCTION: The aims were to describe first-year clinical dental students' psychosocial experiences in a known well-functioning comprehensive clinic teaching group (F+Grp) and a known dysfunctional group (Dys-Grp) and, thus, discover and describe phenomena related to psychosocial functioning of students. These groups were compared and contrasted regarding negative stress symptoms, perfectionism and coping with stress. METHODS: Eight female dental students (mean 26 years old), four in each group, were interviewed after the first clinical year about learning and emotional experiences...

OBJECTIVES: The impact of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)-type symptoms on the natural history of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is uncertain. We aimed to address this in a longitudinal study of secondary care patients. METHODS: Longitudinal disease activity was defined by disease flare, escalation of medical therapy, hospitalization, or intestinal resection. The number of investigations performed and clinics attended determined healthcare utilization. Psychological well-being and quality of life were assessed using validated questionnaires...

BACKGROUND CONTEXT: There is a broad spectrum of complications during or after surgical procedures, with differing incidences reported in the published literature. Heterogeneity can be explained by the lack of an established evidence-based classification system for documentation and classification of complications in a standardized manner. PURPOSE: To identify predictive risk factors for peri- and early post-operative morbidities in spine surgeries of different complexities in a large cohort of consecutive patients...

A recent meta-analysis identified optimal items for assessing sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) as distinct from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder inattention (ADHD-IN), and a preliminary study with teacher ratings of children in the United States found strong support for the convergent and discriminant validity of 15 SCT items. The current study evaluated whether the same 15 SCT items demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity from ADHD-IN in a large, community-based sample of children in Spain, and whether validity results were replicated across mother, father, and teacher ratings...

BACKGROUND: The current study sought to advance the existing literature by providing the first assessment of the factorial and discriminant validity of the ICD-11 proposals for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) in a nationwide level. METHODS: A nationally representative sample from Israel (n = 1,003) using a disorder-specific measure (ITQ; International Trauma Questionnaire) in order to assess PTSD and CPTSD along with the Life Events Checklist and the World Health Organization Well-Being Index...

BACKGROUND: Stage II tibialis posterior tendon dysfunction (PTTD) resistant to conservative therapies is usually treated with invasive surgery. Posterior tibial tendoscopy is a novel technique being used in the assessment and treatment of posterior tibial pathology. The aims of this study were (1) to clarify the role of posterior tibial tendon tendoscopy in treating stage II PTTD, (2) to arthroscopically classify spring ligament lesions, and (3) to compare the arthroscopic assessment of spring ligament lesions with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasonographic (US) data...

Internal carotid artery dissection is one of the possible causes of stroke in young adults. The effectiveness of medical therapy alone is often limited and endovascular strategy should be considered, particularly in the presence of persisting neurological symptoms. Currently, there is no general consensus on the most appropriate therapeutic strategy to follow in symptomatic carotid artery dissection. We here report a case of symptomatic carotid artery dissection treated with an endovascular approach, and we review the recent literature regarding this therapeutic strategy...

Dysarthrophonia is a predominant symptom in many neurological diseases, affecting the quality of life of the patients. In this study, we produced a discriminant function equation that can differentiate MS patients from healthy controls, using electroglottographic variables not analyzed in a previous study. We applied stepwise linear discriminant function analysis in order to produce a function and score derived from electroglottographic variables extracted from a previous study. The derived discriminant function's statistical significance was determined via Wilk's λ test (and the associated p value)...

BACKGROUND: The low anterior resection syndrome (LARS) score is a patient-reported outcome measure to evaluate the severity of bowel dysfunction after rectal cancer surgery by scoring the major symptoms of LARS. The aim of this study was to translate the English version of the LARS score into Japanese and to investigate the validity and reliability of the LARS score. METHODS: The LARS score was translated in Japanese following current international recommendations...

Objective: To investigate the association of alcohol and cocaine use with urban violence (both as victim and as perpetrator) in a representative sample of the Brazilian population. Method: The Second Brazilian Alcohol and Drugs Survey (II BNADS) interviewed 4607 individuals aged 14 years and older from the Brazilian household population including an oversample of 1157 adolescents (14 to 18 years old). The survey gathered information on alcohol, tobacco and illegal substances use as well as on risk factors for abuse and dependence, behaviors associated with the use of substances and the possible consequences, as urban violence indicators...

Background: The Demand Control Support Questionnaire (DCSQ) is an established self-reported tool to measure a stressful work environment. Validated German and English versions are however currently missing. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the psychometric properties of German and English versions of the DCSQ among white-collar employees in Switzerland and the US. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 499 employees in Switzerland and 411 in the US, respectively...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Atrophy and intestinal metaplasia are early phenotypic markers in gastric carcinogenesis. White light endoscopy does not allow direct biopsy of intestinal metaplasia due to a lack of contrast of the mucosa. Narrow-band imaging is known to enhance the visibility of intestinal metaplasia, to reduce sampling error, and to increase the diagnostic yield of endoscopy for intestinal metaplasia in Asian patients. The aim of our study was to validate the diagnostic performance of narrow-band imaging using 1...

BACKGROUND: There is no insomnia screening tool validated in intensive care unit (ICU) survivors. OBJECTIVES: To examine the validity of a single item from the PTSD checklist-Civilian version (PCL-C) to detect insomnia by Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) METHODS: We performed a secondary analysis of data from a longitudinal investigation in 120 medical-surgical ICU survivors. At 1 year post-ICU, patients completed ISI, PCL-C, and Medical Short-Form 12 (SF-12) by telephone...